With Logos 6, you get innovative tools that help you discover biblical insights by identifying connections that were difficult to find. One of these tools is Cultural Concepts.

Cultural Concepts leverages a brand-new dataset that’s the first of its kind in the world of biblical studies. Before this tool existed, you’d have to manually identify connections between the biblical text and extrabiblical literature that provided additional background and explanation on that passage’s cultural context.

But with Cultural Concepts, those connections are already established for you.

How to access Cultural Concepts

There are two primary ways to use this tool in your studies. The first way you can access Cultural Concepts is through the Passage Guide—this is the best approach when you’re preparing a sermon or Bible study lesson on a specific passage. The Passage Guide links to Factbook entries for each cultural concept—just navigate to the Cultural Concepts section in the Factbook, and you’ll get links to ancient literature, Bible dictionaries and encyclopedias, and more. The second way is to simply right click any cultural concept right within your Bible’s text. If a cultural concept is tagged, it will show up in your context menu, and you can click on it to open its Factbook entry for further exploration.

The importance of cultural context

David Witthoff, team lead for the dataset’s creation, explains how Cultural Concepts came about:

The project started with a goal to help users find relevant cultural material that may be related to a passage they are studying. We thought that having a sort of index where ‘marriage’ or ‘sacrifice’ occurred, we could help students of the Bible find other examples of similar practices. By bringing these connections to users, we offer a way to make comparisons and contrasts between the Bible and the ancient world . . .

It was also created because there isn’t really a way to search conceptually. You can find keywords through word searches, but we went a level higher than this with concepts because the same words aren’t always used in relation to one concept.

Identifying the meaning behind cultural concepts helps you understand the biblical world in its ancient context. This tool delivers relevant cultural information from a world so different from ours today; it helps us develop a fuller, more comprehensive interpretation so that we can apply our findings to our lives, guiding modern application of biblical texts.

To see how to use Cultural Concepts, check out this step-by-step video tutorial:

The Genesis and John Collections will stick around after the sale is over, but not at their current prices. Now’s your last chance to save 40% on these two amazing collections filled with volumes from the New American Commentary, the Pillar New Testament Commentary, the International Critical Commentary, and more. You’ll get resources that will help you study these beloved books of the Bible for years to come.

Take your Bible study even further

Logos 6 brings all your resources together in one powerful, searchable library. Logos 6 also makes your resources more useful by providing instant information on biblical topics presented in the resources you love.

Want to know what the Bible has to say about marriage, food, or music? Logos will get you there quickly and deepen your understanding with Cultural Concepts.

And right now, you can save 15% on any Logos 6 base package, plus get up to $900.00 worth of free gifts with your purchase.

Since Logos 6 launched, bloggers, authors, and ministry leaders across the globe have immersed themselves in the software to find out what their favorite features are, how Logos 6 changes their day-to-day studies, and how to gain the most insight from their libraries.

Here’s what some of them have to say:

I highly recommend this if you are a pastor, teacher, writer, researcher, or simply love studying the Bible. . . . There isn’t a doubt it will be put to good use and will help you not only become more efficient, but study more in depth as well.

In the case of Logos 6 you will not get a cheap knockoff. This is the real thing and in my opinion one of the best Bible software packages I have ever worked with. I look forward to my continued use of this fine tool because I cannot go back to the way I did it before my review.

I would highly recommend Logos 6 to you for your personal Bible study or ministry resource needs. With flexible payment options and specifically designed library choices, Logos 6 is the Bible study software that will help you reach goals, become productive, and efficiently complete your work.

After using Logos 6 for several weeks now, I am impressed not only with the functionality but the impressive new tools and resources that have been added to my software tools.

[Logos has] not only revolutionized the way that I study the Bible, it’s got me addicted! There isn’t a night that I don’t look forward to going to bed because I know I’ll be opening Logos. I went from reading a couple of chapters/day to reading a couple of hours/day.

Logos is more than a Bible study program. It is becoming an important part of my life; a window into a vast library of resources that I could never hope to own in printed form. Don’t get me wrong, I love books. But given the option I would take Logos over print hands down because of all the interconnected features.

Born in London in 1856, Herbert Edward Ryle was a prolific writer and theologian, focusing heavily on the Old Testament and Genesis. In 1910, he was appointed as the Dean of Westminster.

In this volume, he provides a bridge between the text and the reader with transliterated Hebrew. His commentary on Genesis still speaks to modern questions, including the use of mythology in Scripture. This can be seen as he writes on Genesis 1:2:

Nothing could more effectually distinguish the Hebrew Narrative of the Creation from the representations of primitive mythology than the use of this simple and lofty expression for the mysterious, unseen, and irresistible presence and operation of the Divine Being. It is the ‘breath’ of God which alone imparts light to darkness and the principle of life to inert matter.

Though this is just one excerpt from his extensive work, Ryle provides this same depth of study throughout his entire commentary.

Get a second book for just $0.99!

A.T. Chapman, another well-respected Cambridge scholar, authors this all-encompassing volume. If you have ever wondered about the Pentateuch’s origins, its composition, or its impact for today’s readers, then this book is for you. Chapman addresses these and other important elements of the first books of the Old Testament in a well-respected resource that has stood the test of time.

The latest in biblical scholarship

Bible Study Magazine is one of the best print publications for Bible study. Six times a year, you’ll get rich content to help you uncover greater meaning from Scripture. BSM also delivers powerful Bible study methods from respected scholars and church leaders straight to your doorstep.

Through January 23, you can subscribe to Bible Study Magazine for just $19.95—that’s more than 33% off the retail price—plus get Moment with God for free.

Devotions for every book in the Bible

Moment with God is loaded with content that will challenge you and help you grow. This devotional offers 66 entries—one for each book of the Bible—to help you discover new biblical insights. Moment with God brings practical application to God’s Word and provides encouragement along the way.

John Barry, one of the editors for Moment with God, shares his personal journey and the inspiration that led him to this project:

For years, I lacked a devotional life. I believed that as a professional Bible scholar I was getting plenty out of the Bible already, but I was mistaken. It took a three-week trip to India—where I was separated from my cell phone and surrounded by incredible believers in Jesus—to see how much I needed God every morning.

Moment with God will help you find spiritual footing and seek God no matter what book of the Bible you’re studying.

Subscribe today!

Don’t pass up this deal—this offer is only available through January 23.

It’s a new year, and there’s never been a better time to dive into Scripture. This month’s top product, the Continental Commentary Series, provides you with in-depth commentary over some of the most difficult books of Scripture, including several multivolume works. And in the Logos format, these 19 volumes are available to you wherever you are.

This critical series is respected for its French and German scholarship, made accessible through English translation. It even includes Claus Westermann’s three-volume work on Genesis. First published in 1974, this remarkable set addresses many of issues still wrestled with today.

Here’s an excerpt in which Westermann succinctly identifies the unique composition of Genesis 1:

Gen 1 contains a fusion of poetry and prose that is unique in the Old Testament. This is to be explained from the pre-history of Gen 1, especially from the union of what have been called the command-account and the action-account. While the latter is simply report or narrative, the former takes on something of a poetic form because of the constantly recurring phrases. The sentence that concludes each day of creation divides the whole as it were into strophes, and the individual sentences of the account of creation by the word have a definite rhythmic stamp.

The rest of the series similarly reflects a precision and focus to draw attention to important textual details. For example, each volume includes historical and cultural considerations, with attention to textual tradition, secondary literature, and lengthy commentary.

And with Dynamic Pricing, you’ll never pay twice for a volume you already own—if you already have any of these volumes in your Logos library, just sign in to see your custom discount.

Due to an unfortunate production delay, the Spurgeon Commentary Collection: New Testament Letters is scheduled to ship January 15. But our production delay is to your benefit: you have just a few more days left to enjoy Pre-Pub pricing on this amazing collection.

With this collection, you’ll benefit from Charles Spurgeon’s wisdom, passage by passage. Application focused, with illustrations culled from his sermons and writings, these commentaries will help you understand, apply, and preach the Bible.

A glowing recommendation

Phil Johnson, the curator of The Spurgeon Archive, wrote the foreward to the Spurgeon Commentary series. Here’s an excerpt from his thoughts on Spurgeon and this groundbreaking resource:

[Spurgeon] could hardly say three sentences without including a phrase, a reference, or an allusion to Scripture. Whenever he spoke, no matter the topic or the venue (even when he was delivering a “lecture” to an academic audience), there was an abundance of Scripture in the message. His daily conversation was saturated with Bibline. Nearly any talk he ever gave would likely exceed some of today’s “expository” sermons for sheer biblical content.

Elliot Ritzema has created a remarkable and eminently useful resource by culling Spurgeon’s expository comments, combining them with key explanatory sections drawn from Spurgeon’s sermons, cataloguing and organizing them by chapter and verse, and giving us this wonderful commentary from the Prince of Preachers.

Why didn’t someone do this long ago? This is an invaluable reference work, made all the more useful by its compatibility with Logos Bible Software. I can’t imagine preparing a sermon without checking to see what Spurgeon might have said about my passage. The Spurgeon Commentary Series has simplified that step. When the series is complete, it will surely be the Logos resource I turn to most often.

—Phil Johnson, curator, The Spurgeon Archive

Order today!

Charles Spurgeon was a truly gifted orator and author. The Spurgeon Commentary Collection is designed for functionality, usability, and readability to make Spurgeon’s writing easier than ever to understand and apply.

On their own, these are some of the best theological resources available, but they’re even more powerful with Logos 6. That’s because every volume includes sophisticated data tagging that connects information across your library with human-like intelligence. Instead of studying each resource as an isolated text, you can connect cultural concepts in the Bible to your favorite dictionaries, jump from citation to source with a click, get relevant original-language data, and more.

Logos 6 makes your resources come alive. The more resources you have, the more connections Logos 6 makes between them, and the more powerful your library becomes.

Get the complete set of Logos 6 tools

Logos 6 Gold is the most affordable base package that offers all of Logos 6’s tools, datasets, Media Collections, and Interactive Media.

Easily discover and share media with Visual Copy and Media Search, find answers fast with Everything Search and Factbook, study Scripture in context with Atlas and Cultural Concepts, visualize the biblical world with Interactive Media, and do smarter original-language study with Inline Search and the enhanced Bible Word Study tool.

Gold offers a considerable step up from Silver, the next lowest base package.

Unlike Silver, Gold includes:

Textual Variants: Seamlessly explore textual differences across ancient manuscripts. This new tool brings together all the resources you need for textual-variant study: get textual commentaries, compare primary texts with modern Bible editions, study original manuscripts, and view scanned photos of original Bible texts.

Atlas (all three volumes): Connect Bible narratives to their geographical context. Browse dozens of new maps, created by a professional cartographer, that offer powerful functionality—including zoom and panning options.

Psalms Explorer: Reveal the poetic structure of each line in the Psalms. Group the Psalms by genre, book, author, or theme and expose the parallel structure of the Hebrew text.

Proverbs Explorer: Filter Proverbs by people, form, theme, or topic. Browse topics that interest you, then sort the Proverbs that address that topic for easy skimming.

Sense Section: Discover all the alternate meanings of Greek and Hebrew words, as well as where they occur in Scripture.

For the first time ever, some of C.S. Lewis’ best works are coming to Logos.

Covering a lifetime of writing, this 30-volume collection contains Lewis’ signature classics (Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Problem of Pain, Miracles, A Grief Observed, The Great Divorce, The Weight of Glory, and The Abolition of Man) along with The Space Trilogy, his complete collection of letters, and devotional works that gather together the best of C.S. Lewis.

Currently, we’re offering this collection for the Pre-Pub price of $279.97—30% off the regular price!

Lewis’ influential legacy

C.S. Lewis has had an incalculable influence on Christianity in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. John Piper, in a lecture on the impact of Lewis in his own life, says, “Lewis gave me, and continues to give me, an intense sense of the astonishing ‘realness’ of things. He had the ability to see and feel what most of us see and do not see.” Commenting on Lewis’ death in 1963, J.R.R. Tolkien remarked, “So far I have felt the normal feelings of a man of my age—like an old tree that is losing all its leaves one by one: this feels like an axe-blow near the roots.”

Lewis was born to Irish parents on November 29, 1898. His early childhood obsession with fairy tales would go on to influence his most famous work, The Chronicles of Narnia. During his adolescence, Lewis rejected the idea of God as silly and without proof. Entering Oxford University in 1916, Lewis left the following year to serve as a soldier in World War I. He was injured soon after and was sent back to England where he resumed his studies at Oxford. After graduation, he joined the faculty of English literature at Oxford, where he befriended the unknown Anglo-Saxon scholar J.R.R. Tolkien.

His struggle with Christianity would come to a head in 1931 when, after a discussion with his friends Tolkien and Hugo Dyson, Lewis accepted the Christian faith after a visit to the zoo. From that point on, Lewis spent the rest of his life discussing and defending Christianity from modern ideas such as relativism and materialism. Near the end of his life, he penned his most enduring work, The Chronicles of Narnia, a children’s tale about the land of Narnia and its protector, the lion Aslan. He went on to marry Joy Gresham, who passed away in 1960. Lewis followed her in death on November 22, 1963, the same day as the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Add classic, enduring works to your library

This collection contains a variety of works from Lewis’ long writing career. His Christian works provide critiques of secular ideas, like materialism, as well as defenses of Christian doctrine, like the actuality of miracles. Mere Christianity, one of his most popular works, presents two of Lewis’ influential apologetic arguments for Christianity: the “trilemma” argument and the argument from universal morality. The Screwtape Letters is written from the perspective of a lead demon teaching his nephew how to lead humans to hell. And Miracles is Lewis’ argument for the presence of supernatural intervention in the natural world.

This collection also includes his three-volume science-fiction epic, The Space Trilogy, which follows the escapades of Dr. Ransom as he travels the solar system fighting the forces of evil. Although more popularly known for his fiction and Christian nonfiction writings, Lewis published many works of literary criticism on works by medieval poets, Paradise Lost, Norse mythology, and more, which are featured here.

Lewis’ collected letters are considered a goldmine of information regarding the progression of his thought during his lifetime. With the Logos edition of his letters, you’ll be able to perform searches based on the recipient of the letter and the date it was written. For instance, if you wanted to read every letter written to Tolkien during the 1950s, simply input these parameters and Logos retrieves all of Lewis’ relevant letters. For the Lewis scholar or enthusiast, Logos makes Lewis’ works more accessible than ever.

This collection has been on the wish list of many users for quite a while, and we are proud to finally offer this collection in our format. During the introductory Pre-Pub period, this collection is on sale for only $297.97—30% off the regular price!

Today’s guest post is from Rich Penix. Penix recently completed a Master of Arts in Biblical Studies at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. He currently serves on the ministry staff at Eden Baptist Church in Burnsville, Minnesota.

When I first considered learning Hebrew online, I had my doubts. I was worried about the lack of classroom accountability and personal encouragement from fellow students. However, after hearing glowing reports from fellow seminary students about Dr. Mark Futato’s Logos-integrated approach to learning Hebrew, I decided to take the plunge.

After completing three semesters of Hebrew through a Logos-integrated approach, I’m sold.

Here’s why: I was shown how to use Hebrew with the instrument in hand that I plan to use for regular teaching and preaching in the years to come.

The challenge of bridging the gap

Dr. Mark Futato is the Robert L. Maclellan Professor of Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. After years of observing students struggle to maintain their knowledge of Hebrew, Dr. Futato decided to create a teaching model that incorporates Hebrew learning within the context of Logos Bible Software. It is the intent in this review to both encourage teachers to creatively and strategically utilize Bible software into their teaching and for students to take such courses that recognize the enduring benefits of Bible software.

Many graduate from seminary with little resolve to maintain their knowledge of biblical Hebrew. One of the factors that contributes to such an attitude is the lack of clarity on how to bridge the gap between memorizing rules of Hebrew grammar and the joys of meaningful exegesis.

Imagine if your child took music lessons, but was only taught music theory. Wouldn’t it seem strange if your child rarely, if ever, touched the musical instrument with which he should use such knowledge? The same applies to learning a language. How much more effective is Hebrew when learned with the proper instrument in hand? Learning biblical Hebrew through Logos Bible Software helps bridge that gap.

Integrating coursework with Logos

In Dr. Futato’s own words, he states:

My Logos-integrated Hebrew courses are primarily geared toward training students in such a way that they will continually use their knowledge of Hebrew and technology throughout their ministries. By incorporating Logos into approximately half of the course, my desire is to equip students to be more precise and profound in the exegesis of the Old Testament, through a knowledge of basic Hebrew grammar and Logos software.

The course begins with a walk-through of how to organize one’s Logos library. Preferred Bible translations, Bible dictionaries, and Hebrew lexicons are organized in precisely the manner prescribed by the professor, so exegetical assignments may be completed in an organized, uniform manner.

Like any Hebrew course, there are regular quizzes and exams testing the student’s understanding of Hebrew grammar and vocabulary. However, a large percentage of the final grade is determined through weekly workbooks that record the student’s answers to exegetical questions that must be ascertained through one’s ever-growing dexterity with Logos Bible Software. Workbooks are graded upon the student’s ability to perform basic operations in Logos, such as morphological searches, syntactical searches, searching the semantic range of a word and other Hebrew word studies. Students are not simply asked to complete a given task in Logos, but to defend why they have made certain exegetical conclusions from the biblical data. This exercise in critical thinking serves the student well as they interact with the Hebrew text.

With an emphasis toward the faithful application of Hebrew, each student is asked to read and comment on the following works:

How Biblical Languages Work: A Student’s Guide to Learning Hebrew and Greek by Peter J. Silzer and Thomas J. Finley

These works were enjoyable to read and provided helpful direction toward the ongoing use of Hebrew in the future.

The benefits of Logos-integrated learning

In summary, I wholeheartedly recommend learning Hebrew through Logos. As a result of studying Hebrew through this model, I instinctively gravitate toward using Logos to search Hebrew words and research syntactical questions in the same manner I was taught. By having a trusted Bible scholar walk me through how to use Logos, I was immediately shown how to practically use Hebrew for precise exegesis. This guidance was a tremendous gift.

If you are a seminary student, I’d encourage you to consider fulfilling your Hebrew requirements through a Logos-integrated approach. Chances are you will likely use some form of Bible software down the road for teaching or sermon prep. Whether you take one of Dr. Futato’s courses through the Global Campus of Reformed Theological Seminary or a similarly constructed course, I’d encourage you to capitalize on a method that teaches the essentials of the language alongside the essentials of Bible software—it’s a win-win!